Dear Tipsters: This morning after my Cognitive Psychology course I noticed that someone had accidentally left behind a 'book'. This turned out to be a photocopy of the course text, professionally spiral-bound in plain card covers (no identifying marks, naturally), which covered every chapter in the syllabus, thus about 500 pages.
With 2 pages per sheet, and assuming 5 cents per page in bulk, this would cost only about $15 to produce, instead of the $130 that our bookstore charges. (And this for the 2005 6th edition of Matlin, one that will be superceded in a few months and thus drop to minimal resale value). The labour of making the first photocopy obviously is considerable, but after that there is little problem. I wondered whether unscrupulous individuals (perhaps off-campus) may soon be tempted to run off multiple illicit copies and sell them to students? For a class of 100, with copies sold at $25 each, that could be an easy profit of $1000. I doubt that this is happening as yet, but it may be starting, and the temptation is certainly there. One more argument for short, cheap textbooks of the no-frills variety? (Very rare, unfortunately). Leo Leo Standing, PhD Tel: 819-822-9600, ex.2456 Psychology Dept, fax: 819-822-9661 Bishop's University, home: 819-346-1897 2600 College St, Sherbrooke QC, Office hours: MW 3-4 J1M 0C8 TTh 2:30-4:30 Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 09:44:13 -0400 From: Kathy Doherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Textbook cost issue This is a multi-part message in MIME format... --=__Part1B3FA43D.0__= Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline I've been following the discussion with some interest. Certainly, I am concerned about the high cost of textbooks and the various strategies employed by publishers to require students to publish new books. However, I'm not sure that I am quite so sympathetic to the argument that it's all because of the used book market. Many other products in our culture operate the same way. The person who purchases the new product (cars, appliances, clothing) pays full price to the manufacturer. Some individuals keep the product for its (or their) lifetime. Others use the product for a while and then resell it to someone else. The manufacturer does not make any money on these secondary transactions. Sometimes products are even sold to a third and even a fourth party. We don't hear other product manufacturers crying because Ebay or the Classified section of the newspaper is stealing their business? Just another point to ponder.. Kathy Kathleen T. Doherty, Ph. D. Coordinator and Professor of Psychology Harrisburg Area Community College One HACC Drive, W-232 Harrisburg, PA 17110 (717) 780-2496 [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
